Holy Week

Ready or not

/ Cassidhe Hart / Leave a comment

Three years.

Three years since my congregation (and many like it) has held in-person services during Holy Week.

I remember Lent of 2020. I remember people saying things like it was the Lentiest Lent they had ever Lented. And then, it just kept Lenting, kept moving through a season of deprivation and confusion and struggle. Winter came around again, and I never felt properly Eastered or summered or called again into life. We just slogged through.

Last spring, I half-joked that I had given up work for Lent: after several months of illness, I was on a medical leave of absence from my job, and my time off overlapped with Lent. I spent the weeks resting and seeking healing and clarity, and this, too, was a deep observation of Lent.

Easter was still an online celebration that year. Earlier this week I watched a video made by my congregation for last year’s Easter Sunday. Households and members had filmed themselves dancing to one of our Easter songs, and these separate videos were compiled into one, complete music video. It was done well, but watching it left me feeling profoundly sad. We were all so disconnected then – and had been for such a long time. I myself had felt unready to return to my job and the overwhelming stress that was making me ill. When Easter arrived that year, the celebration was muted.

The pandemic isn’t gone, of course, but this year is different. My community is highly vaccinated and knows how to mitigate risk. We’ve been gathering to worship in person for months. We marked Ash Wednesday and each Lenten Sunday together in the meeting house. We practiced our Good Friday music and Easter songs this week, singing them together for the first time in three long years.

My own life is as changed as our corporate one. I’ve started a new job working with local, organic food, and I’ve been writing (joyfully) all the time. My wellness has increased. My stress is manageable. Last year feels as faint as last night’s bizarre dreams.

And Lent – it hasn’t felt very Lenty to me at all.

I’ve felt more Advent-y, honestly. Waiting and wondering and living with anticipation.

I was feeling down about this as Holy Week began, disappointed that my inner life had not lined up with the church calendar, that I had not been able to engage the practice of Lent as deeply as I would have liked. Easter was hurtling close impossibly fast. I thought of the game of hide-and-seek I’d played recently with a three-year-old friend: ready or not, here I come! Holy Week had arrived, and I didn’t feel the least bit ready.

But then I remembered Lent in 2020, Lent in 2021, the long fasting from normalcy that stretched between those Lents, the wrestling with global and personal crisis that had wrung me out. I’d been Lenting, I realized, for a very long time.

We do not observe Lent and celebrate Easter in order to feel particular things at particular times. After all, we celebrated Easter the past two years in the midst of grief and challenge; those feelings didn’t stop it from being Easter. My Advent-like feelings of anticipation haven’t stopped the past six weeks from being Lent. These cycles of observance are not in place to manipulate or dictate our experiences but rather to affirm them, to demonstrate how God and God’s story of love is present in every kind of season. We practice Lent, practice Easter, practice Advent, moving through these parts of the story again and again until they become second nature. We wander Lenten wilderness – God is there. We wait in the pregnant dark of Advent – God is there. We wonder at the cacophonous mystery of Pentecost, soak in the quiet gratitude of Epiphany, mark the days of Ordinary Time – God is there. As we cycle through the story again and again, we learn to trust that birth attends preparation, revelation grows from seeking, and resurrection is not far from loss, because this is who God has promised to be. God’s generative presence does not rely on a careful liturgical performance or a specific alignment of our emotions. Easter comes – ready or not – because the God of life cannot be contained.

Maybe this has been yet another overwhelming Lent for you. There are plenty of reasons for it to be, plenty of suffering and despair, plenty of desert journeys and weapons of empire and sealed-up tombs. Or maybe Lent barely registered, a blip on the map of your year, and Easter seems impossible to contemplate. Whether Lent feels never-ending or far away, Holy Week comes. And we move through the rhythms of fierce and liberating love offered to us in every place, every time, every season we inhabit. Jesus says, “Here I come,” and we are found.

Easter sunrise in 2020

Easter 2021

/ Cassidhe Hart / Leave a comment 
While it was still dark
we grabbed our cups of warm beverages
and set off down the nearly-empty street,
the watchful eye of the half-moon
looking out from the sky growing bluer every moment. 

Everyone on the beach is a silhouette,
recognition made harder by the masks we wear.
But somehow we know each other by the choice to be present
here
in the cold dawn on the colder sand. 

The singing starts. 
It’s more muffled this year,
but not even thirteen months of pandemic 
will silence us altogether. 

We watch the horizon 
where a band of cloud
meets the placid water,
and I wonder
what we’ll actually be able to see this year. 

We sing the sky to brightness, 
and the first streaks of color break through: 
jagged lines,
like stretch marks
where the whole world has been waiting to give birth
to this particular morning
in this particular place
with these particular people shouting
“Alleluia!”

And indeed the sun does crown the cloudy horizon.
And a child marvels at just how big it is.
And the lake reflects the glowing red
into a path of light,
a pillar of fire guiding the way
into liberation.
Death has lost its sting, 
and God has arisen
in the swimming muskrat
and the calling seagulls
and the little boys gleefully kicking sand
as the round stone of the sun rolls higher into the sky,
as the pillar of fire grows too bright to look at
and sinks slowly into the water
where it becomes the promised land.
Lighthouse Beach, Evanston, IL, April 4 2021

“My God,” shouts out the suff’ring Lord 

/ Cassidhe Hart / Leave a comment

Written last year as we catapulted into the fullness of the pandemic and Holy Week.

To the tune of KINGSFOLD (To Mock Your Reign)

–

–

“My God,” shouts out the suff’ring Lord, 

“Why have you forsaken me?” 

Our king and the Incarnate Word

Has pow’r for just one plea. 

His body bears an anguished pain

Beyond the heavy cross. 

No human language can contain

This emptiness of loss. 

–

“My God,” yells out the hungry child,

“Why are you so far from me?” 

Their body, dirty and reviled, 

Is home to Deity: 

The lonely Christ is present there

And joins the tearful cry

That dares to give voice to despair

And hungers for reply. 

–

“My God,” cries out the broken Earth,

“Can you not hear my groan?”

This planet to which God gave birth

Now reaps what we have sown. 

The Lord of Life with flesh of clay

Is there in every death,

In each extinction, every way

Creation gasps for breath. 

–

“Where are you, God?” the desperate pray

As they reach out for a word. 

Both midnight and the brightest day,

They question who has heard. 

The lonely, sick, abused, and poor – 

Christ joins them from the cross

And echoes from his wounded core

The fullness of their loss. 

Living Holy Saturday

/ Cassidhe Hart / 2 Comments

When I was in college – when Facebook profiles still fit on one page and I tended toward a bleaker spirituality – my religious views on Facebook read: “We live in a Holy Saturday.” My point, I think, was to highlight the “already-not-yet” nature of Jesus’ beloved community, the waiting and unsureness we all feel when we are seeking God in the world. Today, it would be more accurate to say I believe we migrate through Holy Saturday, again and again, as part of our wrestling with the Divine. And right now, I think, many of us are camped in Holy Saturday, waiting, alone, not sure how to be hopeful.

I’ve often imagined what it would have felt like to be one of the women who followed Jesus, waiting for a whole sabbath day to anoint his body, sitting observantly still on the outside but tangled with fear and confusion and shock within. I’ve imagined a sort of heavy grayness, even on Holy Saturdays when the sun shines brightly. What would it feel like to believe that God had be executed, tortured, killed? To live without even an echo of resurrection?

When I walked to my congregation’s meeting house yesterday, preparing to set up the Zoom broadcast for our Good Friday service, I felt a profound sense of unreality. I couldn’t make my mind remember that I would be in the sanctuary alone, that my worship collaborators would be visible only through a screen, that every house I passed was filled with people sheltering in place, that New York had started digging mass graves for virus victims. I still felt numb when the service ended. I put away the worship elements in an empty building, and when I got home and climbed into bed, I tried to imagine what Easter could be. I cried. And I waited.

I was hoping, by the time I got to this point in writing this post, that I would have something profound to say. But I don’t. I just have emotions calling out past the numbness for expression. Anger at systems that have not prioritized the vulnerable. Grief for the many little normalcies my life has lost. Sadness for the people dying and mourning alone.  Fear as I wonder what parts of our world will be resilient. There is no other call in this moment but the call to stillness, to sit with the reality of the world as fully as I can. The women who followed Jesus knew that their task with the jars of spices would wait. They all could wait.

Most of the theological explanations for what Jesus did on Saturday have focused on the “harrowing of hell,” a sort of final victory for Christ over the death-dealing powers of Satan. The Apostles’ Creed states that Jesus “descended into hell” as its only description of what happens on this strange Saturday. No one actually knows what happened. And knowing what happened, I think, is not the point. All we can know – what can give us consolation – is that whatever happened, Jesus was present in this day, in this unreal, isolated, waiting day. And Jesus is here with us still.

Mary’s Yes

/ Cassidhe Hart / 1 Comment

I preached this sermon at a chapel service at my seminary two weeks ago on a day we celebrated Women’s History Month.  It also seems appropriate for our current celebration of Holy Week. 

Today we are celebrating women. Responding to the call to tell women’s stories during Women’s History Month, we are singing songs written by women, enacting rituals that remembering women, bringing attention to injustice against women, and, just now, we read a story that features a woman.

So let me set the scene the story. In the chapter before today’s passage, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Mary and Martha, Lazarus’ sisters, were witnesses to that miracle and sign of Jesus’ identity. At the end of that chapter, we read that those in power are shaken by this event and are determined to put Jesus to death. The miracle of life is a scary thing sometimes. We don’t know how to respond.

But Mary and Martha and Lazarus did. They welcomed Jesus back to their town of Bethany with a banquet. I imagine a table piled high with olives and lamb and fresh bread. Did they know Jesus’ favorite food? It’s probably there, carried in on a steaming platter. A breeze blows from the street through the open wall, where curious passers-by peer in with excitement to catch a glimpse of both the man raised from the dead and the one who did the raising. Musicians play in the corner. Everyone laughs a joke. Lazarus reclines next to Jesus, and Martha can’t stop smiling as she pours the wine.

The passage tells us that it’s six days before Passover; there’s a sense of counting down to something. We know that there is a death threat hanging over Jesus’ head and that Jesus has foretold his own death. We seem to be close to the fullness of time. The gospel writer wants his audience to know that something important is about to happen.

Enter Mary. We know so little about her. She is one of at least three siblings. She wept bitterly over her brother’s death. She knows and loves Jesus. Imagine her holding a jar, coming from the doorway to the outward end of the couches, past her brother, the sight of whom always gives her heart a start of joy. She takes the jar she’s holding and breaks it open. The thick, amber oil pours slowly onto Jesus’ feet, the scent of so much perfume starts filling up the room. Do people fall silent as they catch the scent and realize what is happening? Do the out-door watchers point and whisper? What does Jesus do?

Mary pours out the whole jar. The whispers grow louder. “She probably paid 300 dinarii for that!” “I’d have to work a whole year to pay for a jar of pure nard!” Mary’s action comes at great personal cost.

When the jar is empty, Mary removes her head covering and carefully unpins her long hair. Those who see shake their heads and purse their lips. A woman with her hair down is a woman without honor, a woman of loose morals. Mary’s action is unashamed, even reckless.

She takes her long hair and begins to wipe Jesus’ feet, spreading the perfume, sending its aroma out to fill not just the room but the entire house. The gospel writer wants us to hear a connection between the way Mary wipes Jesus’ feet and the way, five days later, Jesus will wipe his disciples’ feet as he washes them. After completing the washing, Jesus will call his disciples to serve others in this way as he has served them. His act of service will be a model for what it means to truly follow Jesus.

And here is Mary, five days before Jesus gives this command to his disciples, embodying true discipleship, following the call the participate in the self-giving actions of Jesus. As a woman, she is on the margins of society with barely any power available to her. But as a disciple, she has entered into the heart of Jesus’ call.

Mary’s womanhood in this story is both a blessing and a danger for us as post-modern readers. It is a blessing because we see the typical strictures around women torn down and the fullness of God’s invitation extended. It is a woman who models real discipleship. But we are also walking on dangerous ground. Mary is a woman performing an act of service. We might be inclined to valorize her servant-hood to the point of telling women, who are so often called by our culture into self-effacing sacrifice, that they can never give enough of themselves. Women, don’t complain. Don’t speak up. Don’t resist. Don’t demand respect. Humiliation and even shame are part of the Christian servant-hood bargain. It’s one thing to talk about self-sacrifice in situations of privilege. It’s another thing to talk about self-sacrifice when the worth of selves, in this case of women, has been consistently denied.  

But to view Mary’s action this way would be to miss the point. When Judas calls her act into question, Jesus doesn’t respond by saying that Mary is right because she is acting like a servant. He tells Judas that Mary has kept this for the day of Jesus’ own burial; Jesus connects Mary’s anointing, and thus her discipleship, to the recognition of Jesus’ impending death. What does this connection say about the meaning of Mary’s anointing?

When Mary anoints Jesus’ feet, she brings her whole self to Jesus’ movement of radical love. The other disciples don’t get it. Like Judas, their hearts might be elsewhere. Like Peter, they might be afraid. Like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, they might come timidly to anoint Jesus’ body. Mary anoints boldly. Mary brings her whole heart, her whole self, to the task of loving Jesus well, knowing that it could cost her everything.

When we follow Jesus, do we put our whole selves in? Do we de-compartmentalize our lives and let go of the ways of being that distract us from God’s call? Are we willing to recognize the profound faith of the unexpected and marginalized other, are we willing pay the price of our sense of superiority and attend to the ways God shows up where we have given up?

When Mary anoints Jesus, she refuses to play by society’s rules for norms and roles. She uncovers her head and deals extravagantly. She acts like a disciple even though she is a woman. She doesn’t let the smallness of the world’s imagination restrict the largeness of her love. She looks foolish for the sake of Jesus.

When we follow Jesus, are we willing break the status quo? Do we uncover the insidious habits of thinking that objectify women and hide abuse? Do we stand up for the right of all people to love and commit their lives freely to another person, regardless of sex or gender? Do we rebel against standards of busyness and name ourselves as worthy of rest? Are we willing to look foolish for Jesus? And do we do these things not just as persons but as pastors, as future leaders of the church, as prophets within our own institutions?

When Mary anoints Jesus, she chooses to identify herself with creative resistance. Jesus’ ministry was marked by attention to the powerless and by a boundary-breaking love that calls all people together. This kind of boundary-breaking is always terrifying to those who have hedged themselves with power. This kind of boundary-breaking gets you killed. Mary casts her lot with Jesus, knowing his way of fighting oppression, believing that his love could resist the power of death and create new life out of hopelessness.

When we follow Jesus, do we commit ourselves to the love that resists the power of death? Do we stand with oppressed female factory workers not just with our voices but with our dollars? Do we create spaces of healing and acceptance for teenage girls drowning in messages of self-hate? Do we break the boundaries that keep so many women struggling to care for themselves and their children? Do we join our fate to theirs?

When Mary anoints Jesus, she models a discipleship that gives everything, that rejects the status quo, that joins in with a subversive, boundary-breaking love.

But most of all, when Mary anoints Jesus, her action is born out of gratitude for the triumph of life over death. Jesus has raised her brother from death into life. Jesus has given her and her family new life and strength. Mary is not a model disciple because she worked harder at it. Jesus spoke life into Mary’s existence, and she responded with everything she had. Jesus doesn’t leave us alone in the hard call to follow him. Jesus equips us for unexpected and courageous discipleship. We respond with everything we have because Jesus speaks life into our existence.

I have this image of me, standing at the edge of the banquet room, unwilling to break open my jar and engage the risky work of loving a God condemned to die. I imagine I am not the only one standing there. We ring the room, unsure, not wanting to cause a scene, not certain we have the courage to begin the messy work of justice and mercy. Afraid to say “no” to death because saying “yes” to the life of Christ is sometimes just so terrifying.

Thank God for the courageous and unexpected role models we have in women who embraced the costly, counter-cultural, and transformative nature of discipleship. We have Mary of Bethany, who boldly anointed Jesus. We can learn from Catherine of Siena, who defied the gender roles of the 14th century and worked to bring peace to Italy. We remember Sojourner Truth, who took to task those who tried to deny her humanness and womanhood. We look to Sister Helen Prejean, who dares to build friendships with those society has discarded on death row and fights against the injustice of the death penalty. These women are disciples of an untamable God. They have responded to Jesus’ gift of life with a whole-hearted “yes.”

So, my friends. Serve Jesus with bold acts of love. God has breathed life into our bones and will give us the strength to answer the call of discipleship. Like Mary, may we give our whole selves to the subversive and transformative love of Jesus.